Thursday, July 22, 2010

Ah Ha Moments

Just to the left of our camp site is a small play area which includes a swing set.  Yesterday two toddlers, a little girl about 2 years old and a boy around one year, wandered over to the swing set where the little girl tried to swing by herself.  Her mother eventually came over to give the little one a push but then she walked away, leaving the tiny one to try once again to make the swing go by herself.  It wasn't long before she gave up and got off, walking off with a sad little face.

And that's when I realized my earliest "ah ha!" moment was at age three or four in the backyard of my grandmother's house where there sat an old metal swing set for use by my two cousins and me.  My father was trying to teach me how to make the swing go and I so clearly remember the sunshine, the pickerel fish head mounted on the side of the garage that I faced sitting in the swing, the row of cushiony pink peonies lining the base of the garage and the effort I was putting into throwing my shoulders forward and then back, flinging out my feet at the wrong time and thus going nowhere.  Over and over until my father lost patience and walked away while I continued to strive to make that darned swing move.  Forward and back, forward and back until at some point my feet moved in conjunction with my shoulder movement and suddenly I was actually swinging!  Eureka!  Ah-ha!  THAT'S how it works!  Glory!

What was your earliest "ah-ha!" moment?
 

1 comment:

OmaLindasOldeBaggsandStuftShirts said...

I love your story...it is so poinant. I think we all struggle and hopefully if ya got it in you....well then comes perserverance and then success. I think the struggle and perserverance are missing now days myself. And shame on the Mommy for losing a teachable moment and memory making one too. Gotta grab um while ya got um cuz then they are gone forever.
My memory has to do with turning the water faucet off. The righty tighty, lefty loosey thing had not become a part of my thoughts and my Mom asked me to turn the water off outside in the backyard.....well I turned the spigot....just not the right way and went off to play. Got in a whole mess of stuff...but I never didn't check to see if the water was off when asked again. Righty tighty, lefty loosey saved my child size behind after that.
vert word is grarig. I like the grarig parked over yonder but I love the redrig.

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